The following is written by Chinchilla of the popular ffxi podcast Pet Food Alpha who happened to get banned.
REACTIONS1. Edwyth Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 am
Very well written Chinchilla, I hope this article gets the attention it deserves. The best part is when you bring up the inconsistency with how bans, suspensions, and warnings are given, I wish they would reveal to us how their inner structure worked so we can see why one person got banned and another got suspended and another got nothing when they all did the same thing.
2. Johnny Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 am
“Some players honestly believed that perhaps this could be something that the developers included into the game, especially with the low drop rates of armor in salvage”
Yeah, right… That’s why you and others kept it a secret and wouldn’t even discuss it in party chat out of fear of SE’s retribution. Man up to what you’ve done.
3. Brad Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 1:41 am
Wow, that’s a first. I thought I’d seen it all with the various forms of rationalization/justification noted elsewhere (hi2uBG) along the lines of it was SE’s poor coding that made it all possible. They had, in effect, made live servers their beta! Shame on them. To think they could punish players for their poor coding. But now a new novel approach to putting blame aside, or in this case, complete denial of any wrong doing steps up to the plate. By stating that perhaps this “feature” (you say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to, you say feature, I say exploit) was in fact not only NOT an exploit, you contend it was actually SE hiding an intended feature of the game for the “good” players to discover. Please. Don’t insult the intelligence of the reader. Don’t insult the dignity of this website (does it have any? This is my first time here. But it appears to try to sound somewhat legitimate. I digress.) I’m not here to pass judgment on people. I’m not here to debate whether SE’s methods were heavy handed. I’m not here to debate and sort of moral implications of what went on. I’m only here to state the obvious: it was wrong. You know it was wrong. Every poster on BG who admitted to the dupe exploit knew it was not anything SE had intended. So gtfo with this nonsense.
4. Dev Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 1:56 am
we need to get more people to read this. the only reason this whole thing started was because hundreds of people were left out of the secret and all sent complaint mail to SE. If the 1-time banners sent the same kind of complaint as mature as this article, they might be able to see our PoV. But how long has this glitch been out? The JP knew about it longer than we did?
5. Invinciblemoron Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 am
Guys, I think you’re missing the point of the article. The point isn’t “o noes! why i gotted b&?” The point is that the bannings lack consistency. The same crime is being handled with different punishments.
To make matters worse, the info center isn’t getting the right information apparently. Chin was told she was hit with 2 different levels of banhammer, so who was correct, the info center or the POL message?
Also, where in the article did Chin say that the duping was the right thing to do? She merely stated that “some people” felt that way. She didn’t say that she herself feels that way. Yes she admitted that it was wrong. Read a little closer. She stated clearly that suspensions are well deserved.
6. Kaeko Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 am
Dear PFA,
My character’s name is Kaeko, I suppose one of the more ‘famous’ accounts on the LM-17 list. After explaining my personal situation this afternoon, I received a great number of replies and private messages regarding others’ situations. I would just like to share some of these stories with you - I won’t use names out of respect for them. If you would like more information on their stories, I can ask for their permission.
The point I wish to stress is the idea of inconsistency and who received which ban. For instance, I’ll begin with my own case. I went a total of 4 times, never received anything nor even wanted anything and I received LM-17 (the less severe of the 2). 1 friend present on the same runs received the letter. Another received the full LM-11 ban. I clearly led all runs and I’m positive that this was evident if you had to declare a leader by reading our chats during the run. Why my friend would receive a harsher punishment than me is odd.
Another case involves a story I was given where this person received nothing - not even the “warning letter”, which the rest of his static was LM-11′d. He himself is currently worried because he finds it hard to believe that SE let him slip by considering the rest of his friends received severe punishment for essentially the exact same runs. He received numerous rare “LVL35″ drops. Again, with his account’s safety and privacy in mind, I don’t wish to give specifics on him.
Another rather sad story involves a player who PM’d me saying he clearly knew what he was doing and accepts his punishment. He received LM-17 and called the “SE call center” and was told he would be ok 72 hours (a temp ban). He did this exploit very often. During one of these runs, his JP friend tagged along and participated and apparently was truly as oblivious as you can possibly be about this glitch. The confusion of party allies and disbands coupled with a severe language barrier was the reason for this. This JP friend participates, truly without knowing, and he received the LM-17. He then called the call center and was told he had received the full ban by the call center representative.
At this point, I have personally accepted whatever happens to my account. My only frustration, as with many others in similar situations, is that some who received the most severe punishment (LM-11) were in their friends’ minds, obviously less culpable; and in the last case I mentioned, even completely outright oblivious. Many people I have talked to have actually seperately reached the same conclusion that who received what was almost random.
If SE chooses to ban my for the 4 runs where this glitch was used that I was present in and the 0 items I received during them - this is their choice. I mean this 100% since I feel like there was an intent on my part to see this glitch occur. Again, my only frustration is the inconsistency and seemingly random method used to determine who received nothing, a warning, a temp ban, and a permanent ban. I heart goes out to my friends.
Thank you, and I hope that even if nothing palpable comes of your article, that talking about it will at least provide you a therapeutic effect.
Best wishes,
Kaeko
7. Tsuki Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 2:12 am
Sorry but in no way would anyone ever consider this to be “a normal part of the game” In no other aspect of the game does an exploit such as this come into play. I find the entire tenure of this post unbecoming of PFA. Its nothing but pure denial and grasping at straws here with crackpot excuses for cheating. The severity of the bans is definately something that could and should be discussed for sure, but the junk about people thinking that this was “okay” or “normal” needs to go. Sorry if it sounds harsh but this is really premature freaking out and non-thinking on your part and it doesn’t become this website.
8. Fusionx Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 2:15 am
@Tsuki, write an article after finding out you’ve been banned. I’m sure it wouldn’t be perfect either.
9. Dev Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 am
some ppl have received different punishments for this? this makes me wonder if the man on the phone will say i have a temp ban if i call again…
but please spread kaeko’s word. SE will read this site.
10. Sevv Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 2:22 am
As much as I have lost a good amount of friends from this instance, I’m sorry to say that duping has been atleast for a great time very much against the TOS and bannable before. Really sorry you got caught up in this Chin, but everyone knew they were circumventing the design of the game. I never heard that you 11′d or 17′d I am hoping you only got a temp. Thing is most of the linkshells and players who only did this once got off with a Temp ban, and multiple accounts it came down their call like it always has been. It was a way to cheat the system and many people did it for a long time so they got what they deserved.
11. Aaria Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 2:32 am
@ Dev, I am curious to know as well if making multiple calls would result in different answers
12. Tsuki Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 am
I’m not saying it has to be perfect after just finding out you got banned, however you should have had someone else write it or waited till you’ve slept this off. The only real parts that need snipping are the ones outlined by me and several others. You require clarity now, which you don’t have. You’ll see tomorrow how silly that part was. I’m not happy about the severity of some of the bans as i stated before thats definately on the table for discussion but honestly it doesnt put PFA in a good light to have a prominent member of the community websites stating in any way that this was thought as by players as “intended” or “normal” :/
I am sorry for time and efforts lost; I think the punishment is QUITE severe.
13. Gixander Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 3:04 am
While the article is, like any good document, given from a certain perspective, everybody is right. Was it wrong to use terminology that could give dupers a little wiggle room in the article? I can agree with that. Perhaps what Chin meant with the statement regarding “okay” or “normal” was actually an attempt at describing that Square-Enix has watched as the player base has become very creative, forcing them to get creative right back at us with drop rates and ways to spawn mobs and therefore items as well.
I mean, the first person to come upon Dark Ixion probably wondered why he couldn’t claim it until he figured it out. Here’s a better example. SE has their own ideas, which is by no means wrong. SE has in their minds how the monsters should be defeated. When we as players become creative, say, the Kraken Club Dark Knight slaughterfest on AV, instead of doing what SE should have done (i.e., tweak it SLIGHTLY…and give them a pat on the back for ingenuity), they go on the offensive, tweak it beyond all recognition save the sprite, and then slap the KCDKs on the back of the head. It used to be posible to lock the two hours, which as far as I can tell was actually coded into the game. After all, it wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t coded to work like that. But when we figured it out, we got smarter and used it. Knowledge is dangerous, or perhaps SE were having a slack-of day. SE, from past experiences, is usually very thorough in reviewing the logs; however, with something like this, there’s just way too many logs to go through. What should have been done is for SE to temp ban of sorts all the accounts. As they would go through the account logs, they’d check through it to see exactly what happened, and then if it turned up clean, your account gets turned back on. If not, well, that’s a different story.
14. Liv Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 3:12 am
I can also vouch for the total inconsistency of the SE bannings. Some of the worst offender from my server, people who have known about the glitch for upwards of 5-6 months before it was fix have only received temp bans or no warning at all. While myself and many members of my LS have been banned permanently after knowing and using the glitch for just over a month. In fact, we even have one member who attended basically every run that I did and was just as involved in the organization as myself or any other member of my group, however, they received a temp ban.
When I questioned a SE representative on the phone about this he simply said he had no idea. I for one feel that as a customer of five years SE owes it to myself and other players like me to react fairly and provide information as to how these very significant decisions were reached. Instead the bannings seem to have no logical pattern and SE has made no attempt to shed any light on how they determine “more serious infractions”. All that loyal players can do is wait for hours on a non-toll-free line only to be totally stonewalled buy uninformed call center workers – yet another example for SE providing subpar customer service.
I’m not denying that there was no wrong doing on our part, but if there was a violation of the ToS shouldn’t everyone receive the same punishment? With some individual’s play time dedicated to this game exceeding a year the huge difference between a 3 day temporary ban and a permanent only goes to show how grossly SE have overreacted to this.
15. Veyronn Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 3:32 am
I’ll say it myself, I was perma-banned. I know what I did was wrong, I won’t ever try to justify it, but I will speak up on behalf of everyone that’s spoken to me personally through PM’s, Msn, Aim, and Forum posting.
I found out about it for 2 weeks before it got patched. It was brought to my Ls by a server transfer who spoke to the leaders of my shell (SapereAude) and explained what he thought it was to them and they perfected it to their own means. Then a 2nd Salvage group found out and used it for a few months, then my group found out because our leader was also a Sackholder and he started doing stuff without telling us what was going on. Our whole group was sending me tells (I co-lead the group and wasn’t being told what was going on either) asking what was going on, why were we making pt’s and breaking them, why are cells being lost, so on & so on. We didn’t make it off of the 2nd floor in Bhaflau Remnants the whole time we were in the zone. About 85% of my group now has either 72 hour bans or perma-bans.
Once it was figured out, it was still rather confusing for 90% of our group as only 3 or so could be on Ventrilo and be able to chat about it openly (We were told not to speak about what was going on in game) and most of the group followed what they were told to do.
Everyone’s views have been relatively the same, they believe that some justice was due, but not Perma-ban’s. Maybe even more than a 72hr suspension, maybe a 10-day ban, or even a month, but everyone has agreed that a Perma-ban on an Account that has never been part of any other exploits, botting, etc etc does not deserve to be 1 time no warning Perma’d for this.
I side with them, not only because my Account was compromised, but because I’ve heard the same views expressed from so many sources over and over. People that played in the past heard I got banned and contacted me, people that play now and didn’t get banned/warned/suspended feel the same way, people that still play are complaining. It wasn’t just “oh hey that guys an idiot he exploited some Salvage and got ban hammered,” it’s more along the lines of “Wow, how many friends did I loose because of this?…”
/end wall-o-txt
16. Xiath Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 3:36 am
my account got banned some time ago but Im still having LM17 error, which is the temp ban. Its like 2 months ago this happend and Im still banned..
17. Chinchilla Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 3:42 am
This took me quite a while to write, as I wanted to make sure I hit everything I thought that was important in reguards to the investigation and punishment of the people who received punishment. The issue here is NOT whether it was right or wrong to dupe items in salvage, it’s about the lack of consistency when handling the banning and suspension of accounts.
Please, don’t just assume what the article says before you jump to conclusions.
Also don’t assume I’m talking about myself or only myself when I don’t use “I” I’ve been through several message boards and forums, talked to quite a few people and gather what information I could about the issue.
It’s about consistency, and what was used to determine the severity of each individual account. Please do not put words in my mouth or assume anything. Our forums and the messages posted here are used for further discussion of the event in question.
Also, if you’re post is going to be one of those ‘holier than thou’ posts, please don’t bother. It’s like kicking someone when they’re down. I’m sure everyone that was suspended or banned feels bad enough.
18. RadicalDatt Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 3:56 am
How does the old saying going?
You reap what you sow?
19. You dont need to know my name Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 am
Punishment too severe. Yea i say suspend em sure. days, couple weeks maybe, hell a month even. But thats it. Worse “crimes” have occured in this game and SE has refused to even acknowledge them let alone analyze them. Now they miraculously start to care again? hmm. Really says alot about this game and the people who run it eh? This is a dying game SE. wakey wakey. I quit myself months ago. I dont think you wanna lose any more ppl than you have the past 2 years. Check your statistics. We all have…I would seriously rethink this.
20. Pumillio Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 4:06 am
I think the question you guys need to ask yourselves is: “Why do I not like RMT in the first place?” I can tell you why I do not like them personally and its really simple, they cheat. This game is meant to be challenging and fun not easy and dumb. RMT are exactly whats wrong with all MMO’s and most of us know this. We should be happy FFxi (SE) is the only MMO out there that provides help against RMT. But I know this is meant to be about players who are NOT RMT I realize this but… isnt keeping something like duplicating some of the best item’s you can possibly get in FFxi a secret from the most of the community and SE itself cheating also? Or just flat out shady? I mean heck I think its awful if your a 100% legit FFxi player who has never bought gil or used bots or cheated in any way and got banned. But I find it hard to believe that you guys didnt realize what you were doing was cheating. Bottom line is you got caught with your hands in the cookie jar. Guess after all of that… what I am trying to say is SE is good to us. So how bout less complaints and more gratitude.
21. Adam Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 4:11 am
I’m sorry Chinchilla, but if you truly believe that anyone thought that this was a normal part of the game, I have lost all respect for you I ever had.
22. Loyaltrekie Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 4:24 am
I awoke to quite a few MSN messages this morning, talking about people being banned, which I then logged into POL to see what it was about, from the people sending me messages and the weird timing, I had assumed that the Salvage-Banhammer had fallen, so I wasn’t all that suprised.
Let me start off by saying I was not one of the dupers, and only found out about it the week of the patch that fixed it. In that time, even though I had known of the exploit, I couldn’t have used it had I wanted to, as that entire week was SSR(Silver Sea Remnants) and as anyone who has participated in salvage for a while, SSR drops are few and far between. With that being said, allow me to continue.
While I am glad Square Enix has shown some initiative in that, even though the game has grown quite old, that they are still showing intrest in it. That does make me happy, but the way they did it concerns me greatly.
Having had 20 or so friends involved in the duplicating exploit, I’m fairly bewildered as to how each action was taken, for instance;
3 friends we’re involved in the alliance breaking, but never received a drop. The recieved LM-17 into permas.
1 friend received 5 pieces(2 35 bodys, 1 35 leg, 2 35 hands) they recieved a message ‘warning’.
1 friend recieved 1 duped piece(35 body), recieved LM-11.
2 friends recieved multiple pieces of varying levels and recieved an LM-17 into permas.
The lack of any form of consistency is what scares me the most. While I do agree with some bannings, such as someone who was duping Alexandrite, or Sandworm drops to be sold. I honestly don’t believe that perma banning people for duping r/e drops should have resulted in an immediate perma ban.
There are many more ways they could have dealt with this issue, but they took the easiest way out and did a random pick of what each player should get. Honestly, I’m glad they handled it, but I’m not glad in the way in which they did it.
For many people this was the first thing they had been “tagged” for, and receiving a perma ban is just a little extreme, all Square Enix is doing is losing more money, which they don’t need to be. If they wanted to be extreme there was other methods, such as giving the first time offense, no money duping players a 4 week temp ban, along with removing all completed salvage gear, whether it was duped or not. That is by far extreme enough.The plethora of other ways they could have handled it could have been a lot better, and just as “extreme” without removing a character that someone has invested countless hours in over the course of 5 years.
In short, the heavy banning on players who duped r/e gear and not alex/sandworm drops needs to be removed. Remove their completed Salvage gear instead, as I guarantee these players won’t cancel their POL ID because of it, and will go back to earning it legitimately. Keep the perma for people who duped Alex/Sandworm. Most of all I would like to see their reasoning as to why certain people got what type of punishment.
All in all, its a testament to Square Enix’s gimmicky drop rates over all, anyone who has done salvage knows first hand how abysmal the drop rate is for anything(Hi to you SSR), and in all honesty I don’t blame them for duping it. Had I had the chance I may more then likely had used it. When you spend 50+ hours logged into a Salvage area, and have yet to see a drop, it gets more frustrating then anything. I fully understand that Square Enix needs to use time sinks in order to keep players longer, and that is fine, but these 1-5% drop rates have got to go.
As for all the people shouting in Whitegate/Jeuno/Etc with silly comments, I honestly don’t understand you. Duping R/E gear hurts no one, in actuality it benefits the economy in some ways as 3x as many people were trying to get wamura cloths, Imp. Ingots etc. Now adays the demand for them are almost so abysmal its comparable to the SSR drop rate anyways. So please, saying that them duping salvage drops hurt you in completely necessary, if you want someone to complain about, try the people destroying the fish economy by botting, or the people still claiming kings with lvl 5 warrior mule bots, etc etc etc.
I hope the best to all my good friends, semi-good friends, and not so good friends who got Overkill-Banned and hope that Square Enix notices the mistake they made when they just tossed random ban hammers, best of luck on your future endeavors, A.K.A see you in WoW.
-J-Walk
23. Ruz Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 4:29 am
The article personified how I feel about the whole thing. The permanent bans without a warning is ridiculous. Some people got a warning, others got a 72 hour break from the game, while the rest got all their work erased without notice.
I was expecting them to suspend or even remove the salvage items off the character who exploited the glitch. I never saw this coming.
24. Xellith Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 4:55 am
I personally feel that EVERYONE who duped drops should have a 7 day ban and ALL salvage gear confiscated.
Banning works just as well too though
25. WishesToRemainAnon Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 5:03 am
Hi PFA,
Before I say anything more, I just want to make clear I’m neither a spokesman for SE nor am I a sudent of Law and Order. These are just my thoughts on the matter.
In regards to the whole idea of the author trying to question the consistency and credibility of punsihment unnerves me. I think to myself, “imagine if this were a real like situation..”
Imagine if people who’ve commited an offence were given the right to say “I admit I was wrong, but my friend commited an offense too and he only got…”.
I would not be comfortable if cries for consistency and “fairness” from an offender were able to affect the outcome of a sentence in real life. Even if there is an appeal system (in my Country).
Those 950 or so accounts that were penalized are a small minority of the total FFXI Population. Whether or not the drop rates are terrible on some monsters, and Absolute Virtues genuine strategy has been found, like everyone else, they agreed to the same Terms and Conditions as everyone else did. However, unlike everyone else, these players took it upon themselves to heavily exploit a flaw creating an unbalanced advantage for themselves.
Personally, I don’t buy the whole “for the good of community” argument this author has made. I’m a fan of previous articles written by PFA’s hosts, but to hear one exploit the game as a minority then cry “where’s the fairness in punishment” is ridiculous.
26. Liseth Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 6:12 am
I’d definitely agree with the whole “SE being cryptic” thing and having some doubt in my mind as to whether or not this glitch was a glitch or it was honestly SE being SE. There is so much grey area in that company that it’s just confusing. What do they want from us as players? We are customers first, I don’t think they really understand what they did here, but maybe that’s just me. Ah well, excellent post. Let’s hope for the best.
27. Windsong Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 6:30 am
Well, this explains why ya weren’t on my FL list yesterday.
After readin a few of the boards on this there does seem ta be almost a random nature ta all the bannings.
Main thing I’m seein is the reaction from the players tho that I think some of the endgame community provoked. For that there is a thread on BG with quotes from the orginal dube fix thread at
http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/ffxi-a ... hread.html One of the choice ones I read is:
“lol. the people who should/deserved to know, knew. Those that didn’t, didn’t. It’s as simple as that. It was kept quiet so to keep the high and mighty people who deemed this sort of behaviour as “inappropriate” from reporting it in mass scale and ruining it for those of us who enjoyed gaining our just rewards. Do Salvage 4-7 times a week for a year, complete a whopping piss poor 2-3 pieces and then come back with your Q.Q’ing.”
How is the player base goin ta react ta statements like that? Granted, this isn’t the opinion of everyone in the game, but it stands out and causes hate and anger toward people that were part of this exploit. I think that is the main reason there was such a harsh crack down by SE.
Well, my only post so far on this crap. Ya have been around in the game a long time Chin, helped me out when I first got ta carby, I’ve got some of my best memories from times in Blue Stone Bandits and Red Stone Rebels, how ya helped me unlock Dragoon which is now my main job, unlock Ninja which is now 71 and pushin toward 75 and showed me what a 75 Mithra Redmage could do.
Don’t forget yer roots is a motto I try ta follow. I hope it works out fer ya.
28. Lordwafik Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 6:51 am
Their inconsistency is my biggest peeve with this issue. I understand what I did and I got a ban - while I’m annoyed I can’t play any more, that’s not my biggest issue.
My salvage set had about 9 people total, 3 of us got perma banned, 3 of us got letters, and the other 3 got nothing at all. We all did the same thing but all got different punishments which is just absurd, I too am curious what is it exactly that caused them to get bans? For more information, 1 of the people who got perma banned got absolutely nothing from it, 2 of the people who got the letters got a 35 each from it, and the people who got no letters or anything also received nothing, much like the person who got permanently banned.
This really is inconsistent, my personal feeling is everyone should have gotten a warning, and considering the fact SE said they could track everything down, all the salvage gear that was obtained in an illegitimate manner should have been stripped.
29. Matriel Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 7:30 am
hi my names kujato from garuda server. may also be known as matriel on valefor.
i was perma banned with a LM-17 when i returned from college today.
i was involved in the glitch on my second salvage run only and recieved a permanent ban w/o a warning or suspension.
all my salvage static have recieved permanent bans losing characters which have had hard work put into them for years with some of them owning multiple rare items.
in my personal opinion a permanent ban was a too strong. people knew they did something wrong or glitched the game but it was all down to Square enix’s flawed design. i gained 1 item from the glitch and earned the rest of my salvage gear legitimately.
i hope more people can post here and show support for people who have gained a LM-17 or LM-11 ban. this punishment is too severe for many people.
many of most skilled people have lost there characters who knew about the glitch and the banning/suspension seems pretty much random for each person.
for those who have lost your characters post here and show your feelings too.
Matriel
30. Kellendil Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 7:34 am
this sums it up the best:
I, honestly, think this ban was bull. First things first, I was not banned, no one in my shell was banned, none of my close friends were banned. Regardless, I don’t think a programming error on SE’s behalf is a reason to ban people. Exploited or not, it was SE’s fault the glitch was there in the first place. If SE knew about this it should have been taken care of way sooner and they should have given those people involved a slap on the wrist for a week. Being banned, or punished in any way because someone else fucked up just isn’t fair. We can’t change what happened and I’m not saying the people who exploited the glitch were right to do it, I just think a ban is far too harsh of a punishment.
31. Richardd Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 7:36 am
“People have gotten a suspension for racism, harassment, threatening someone in game, grievance to a linkshell or individual, fish botting, mine botting, and bot claiming monsters on their first offense. So how do those actions warrant a suspension to the game, but individuals dissolving an alliance are getting banned.”
def the best quote on this site.
We all know what we did was wrong, but the manner in which they handled it was just ridiculous.
32. OMGitsJez Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 7:44 am
Many people will be greatly missed.
I left this on PFA and figured it deserved a spot here too, on a more personal note to you, you have provided a lot of very great information that more casual players, take for granted. What many more “casual” players don’t realize is what of value was actually lost today. We also lost most of the players that gave us all the indepth information we have taken for granted, Enmity; ws mods; hidden effects; etc.
Let me start off by saying I was not one of the dupers, and only found out about it the week of the patch that fixed it. In that time, even though I had known of the exploit, I couldn’t have used it had I wanted to, as that entire week was SSR(Silver Sea Remnants) and as anyone who has participated in salvage for a while, SSR drops are few and far between. With that being said, allow me to continue.
While I am glad Square Enix has shown some initiative in that, even though the game has grown quite old, that they are still showing intrest in it. That does make me happy, but the way they did it concerns me greatly.
Having had 20 or so friends involved in the duplicating exploit, I’m fairly bewildered as to how each action was taken, for instance;
3 friends we’re involved in the alliance breaking, but never received a drop. The recieved LM-17 into permas.
1 friend received 5 pieces(2 35 bodys, 1 35 leg, 2 35 hands) they recieved a message ‘warning’.
1 friend recieved 1 duped piece(35 body), recieved LM-11.
2 friends recieved multiple pieces of varying levels and recieved an LM-17 into permas.
The lack of any form of consistency is what scares me the most. While I do agree with some bannings, such as someone who was duping Alexandrite, or Sandworm drops to be sold. I honestly don’t believe that perma banning people for duping r/e drops should have resulted in an immediate perma ban.
There are many more ways they could have dealt with this issue, but they took the easiest way out and did a random pick of what each player should get. Honestly, I’m glad they handled it, but I’m not glad in the way in which they did it.
For many people this was the first thing they had been “tagged” for, and receiving a perma ban is just a little extreme, all Square Enix is doing is losing more money, which they don’t need to be. If they wanted to be extreme there was other methods, such as giving the first time offense, no money duping players a 4 week temp ban, along with removing all completed salvage gear, whether it was duped or not. That is by far extreme enough.The plethora of other ways they could have handled it could have been a lot better, and just as “extreme” without removing a character that someone has invested countless hours in over the course of 5 years.
In short, the heavy banning on players who duped r/e gear and not alex/sandworm drops needs to be removed. Remove their completed Salvage gear instead, as I guarantee these players won’t cancel their POL ID because of it, and will go back to earning it legitimately. Keep the perma for people who duped Alex/Sandworm. Most of all I would like to see their reasoning as to why certain people got what type of punishment.
All in all, its a testament to Square Enix’s gimmicky drop rates over all, anyone who has done salvage knows first hand how abysmal the drop rate is for anything(Hi to you SSR), and in all honesty I don’t blame them for duping it. Had I had the chance I may more then likely had used it. When you spend 50+ hours logged into a Salvage area, and have yet to see a drop, it gets more frustrating then anything. I fully understand that Square Enix needs to use time sinks in order to keep players longer, and that is fine, but these 1-5% drop rates have got to go.
As for all the people shouting in Whitegate/Jeuno with silly comments, I honestly don’t understand you. Duping R/E gear hurts no one, in actuality it benefits the economy in some ways as 3x as many people were trying to get wamura cloths, Imp. Ingots etc. Now adays the demand for them are almost so abysmal its comparable to the SSR drop rate anyways. So please, saying that them duping salvage drops hurt you is completely necessary, if you want someone to complain about, try the people destroying the fish economy by botting, or the people still claiming kings with lvl 5 warrior mule bots, etc etc etc.
33. Mandze Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 7:55 am
I think upwards of 20 of my friends lost their characters yesterday. It isn’t just a jab in the face to the people who were banned, but to those of us who played with them over the years, made good friends, and equated their successes with our own. SE is shooting itself in the foot here– not only banning 550 of their most loyal players, but also ripping apart the endgame shells which are the reason their other 75 players keep playing. If the threats of even more bans after this wave end up being true, I don’t even want to consider how little is going to be left for the level 75 players out there. Hey guys, the eight of us who aren’t banned can go low-man Khimaira or Timmy once every three days. Woo-fudging-hoo.
Terrain glitches used to block monster damage at DL and Khimaira, the new “strat” of logging off at Pandemonium Warden– hell, any noob logging off after sleeping an aggroed monster– those could all be interpreted as taking advantage of “unintended features” in game design as well. I think it is ludicrous that people were banned for using THIS glitch when there are so many glitches in the game that draw no attention or intervention whatsoever.
I agree wholly that is absurd to ban people over this when people who can verbally abuse and threaten one another and walk away with only a suspension or a warning from a GM. SE’s priorities are screwed up.
34. Riker Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 am
I agree completely. People use 3rd party programs and get temp bans, then kill in 3 different parties instead of an alliance and get banned… Maybe this was THE way to do salvage? Odin has a weird way of succeeding with the kneeling aspect, AV obviously has a trick SE wont tell us about, along with many latent effects on gear we have to figure out on our own.
Sure, it was wrong to dupe, but SE needs to compromise with their own faults, and with our cravings for items. So hey, as far as im concerned no one knew it was wrong and SE never made it clear after a year so Hell!
lol… lets get some accounts back son!
35. Onorgul Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 8:43 am
You deliberately kept this secret. You do understand what the burden of guilt is, right? If you legitimately believed that this was some magical way to fix the lousy drop rates in Salvage, you’d have published this to FFXIclopedia, BGwiki, or posted it on a host of different forums. That no one did is proof of malicious intent. Welcome to the real world, we have consequences and that’s why you have a sense of guilt. It’s there to tell you, “Hey, maybe I should reconsider this since it worries me.”
36. Zidiane Says: January 23rd, 2009 at 8:43 am
I find the fact that it was used for so long and this plee is out there, when there its against the ToS and you could also report the bug. As it was said the glitch was found on a JP site. As most other glitchs were reported I don’t see why you could get off the harshnes of their choice when no one throught to report it and abused it so freely. Sorry to say, It does suck to hear some of the people banned were decent players but there is no getting away from the “You knew very damn well what you were doing”.
Apealing on the front of it’ll effect large portiosn of moral ingame however does have a front to apeal on. Then again if they gave the leaders of linkshells a 72 hr only now, it would be incredibly unfair to everyother person who was perma banned. Basicly theres no way you can string it w/o looking selfish.
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